Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

Korean Air Will Postpone Devaluation Of SkyPass Frequent Flyer Program [Updated With 2 Year Extension]

by Gary Leff

korean air
Jan 06 2021

In December 2019 – shortly before the start of the pandemic – Korean Air announced a huge devaluation of their frequent flyer program with revenue-based mileage-earning and a new distance-based award chart coming in April 2021.

Korean Air has offered one of the more lucrative frequent flyer programs for many years, and access to outstanding award inventory not made available to its partners. However they’re also part of a joint venture with (and partially owned by) Delta, so devaluation of their mileage program was almost a given – at least until the pandemic hit.

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Delta Picks ViaSat To Push Forward A Plan American Nixed Two Years Ago

by Gary Leff

delta seat back life
Jan 05 2021

Delta decided to drop Gogo internet from its main domestic fleet, and replace it with ViaSat. They reiterated their commitment to move forward with free internet, and believe ViaSat will be best to drive their project streaming content to seat back entertainment screens… an effort American Airlines considered and rejected, despite an internal push for such a project.

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Get Your Vaccine And Travel To Asia On Miles In The Back Half Of 2021

by Gary Leff

Jan 01 2021

Star Alliance member EVA Air has wide open business class award space from Los Angeles to Taipei (and beyond in Asia) for August 2021 through end of schedule.

International travel right now isn’t an option for most – especially to Asia – but come summer 2021 the world is likely to look a lot different than it does today. I’m betting that late summer and fall travel is going to be possible, and mileage trips are exactly what you want to be booking given the flexibility to cancel and redeposit miles. I’ve got an Asia trip on the books for the back half of 2021 already myself.

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Happy New Year! Virgin Atlantic Devalues Awards On Delta With No Notice

by Gary Leff

Jan 01 2021

In general Virgin Atlantic has some of the least valuable miles but their points are ubiquitous since they’re a transfer partner of Chase, Ameriacn Express, and Citibank. They do have real sweet spots. My favorite is using their miles for ANA first class round trip to Tokyo for just 120,000 miles.

Perhaps their most useful redemption was award travel on Delta. Not anymore. And without any notice, boom, during the pandemic.

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Is American Airlines Still At Risk Of Bankruptcy?

by Gary Leff

british tail plane
Dec 31 2020

American is at a cost disadvantage relative to the industry. Management won’t want to seek a strategic restructuring. Chairman and CEO Doug Parker owns approximately 2.4 million shares of the airline’s stock. However American remains at greater risk of bankruptcy than rivals, that hasn’t ended with the close of 2020 (though vaccines improve the carrier’s prospects), and talk of bankruptcy risk certainly hasn’t been “nonsense” as veteran airline journalist Ted Reed claims at Forbes.

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